{"id":69131,"date":"2025-11-25T13:07:25","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T13:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/69131\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T13:07:25","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T13:07:25","slug":"id-rather-take-them-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/69131\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I\u2019d rather take them down\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

It appears that the Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> are not the favourites to land free agent Japanese right-hander Tatsuya Imai. <\/p>\n

In fact, Imai suggested he\u2019d like to sign elsewhere to \u201ctake them down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Imai told former MLB pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka<\/a> on the Japanese show Hodo Station that while joining the Dodgers alongside fellow Japanese stars Shohei Ohtani<\/a>, Yoshinobu Yamamoto<\/a> and Roki Sasaki<\/a> would be fun, so would getting to play a part in denying them their third straight World Series.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, I\u2019d enjoy playing alongside Ohtani, Yamamoto, and Sasaki,\u201d Imai said via MLB.com\u2019s Michael Clair and Ayako Oikawa, \u201cbut winning against a team like that and becoming a World Champion would be the most valuable thing in my life. If anything, I\u2019d rather take them down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Imai also said he wasn\u2019t even necessarily looking to join a team with another Japanese star.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there were another Japanese player on the same team, I could just ask them about anything, right?\u201d Imai said. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut that\u2019s actually not what I\u2019m looking for. In a way, I want to experience that sense of survival. When I come face-to-face with cultural differences, I want to see how I can overcome them on my own — that\u2019s part of what I\u2019m excited about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Imai was posted by the Saitama Seibu Lions of the Japanese League last week and has until Jan. 2 to sign with an MLB team.<\/p>\n

According to MLB\u2019s posting agreement with Nippon Professional Baseball, a posting fee would account for 20 per cent of the first $25 million the player receives on a major-league contract. It then drops to 17.5 per cent of the next $25 million and 15 per cent of any amount over $50 million.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old was 10-5 with a 1.92 ERA and 178 strikeouts in 163.2 innings pitched spread out over 24 outings this season. He has a career NPB ERA of 3.15 and has pitched his entire eight-year career for Seibu in the Pacific League.<\/p>\n

Imai is the second major free agent from NPB to be posted this off-season, joining Yakult Swallows power-hitting infielder Munetaka Murakami. His posting window officially ends on Dec. 22. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It appears that the Los Angeles Dodgers are not the favourites to land free agent Japanese right-hander Tatsuya…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6013,48,52,51,47,50,49],"class_list":["post-69131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-apple-news","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}